Category: How-To

AWS Organizations offers new capabilities for managing AWS accounts, including automated account creation via the Organizations API. For example, you can bring new development teams onboard by using the Organizations API to create an account, AWS CloudFormation templates to configure the account (such as for AWS Identity and Access Management [IAM] and networking), and service control […]

In Amazon Cloud Directory, it’s often necessary to add new objects or add relationships between new objects and existing objects to reflect changes in a real-world hierarchy. With Cloud Directory, you can make these changes efficiently by using batch references within batch operations. Let’s say I want to take an existing child object in a […]

With AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (Enterprise Edition), also known as AWS Microsoft AD, you can now create and enforce custom password policies for your Microsoft Windows users. AWS Microsoft AD now includes five empty password policies that you can edit and apply with standard Microsoft password policy tools such as Active Directory […]

You can now increase the redundancy and performance of your AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (Enterprise Edition), also known as AWS Microsoft AD, directory by deploying additional domain controllers. Adding domain controllers increases redundancy, resulting in even greater resilience and higher availability. This new capability enables you to have at least two domain […]

I am an AWS Professional Services consultant, which has me working directly with AWS customers on a daily basis. One of my customers recently asked me to provide a solution to help them fulfill their security requirements by having the flow log data from VPC Flow Logs sent to a central AWS account. This is […]

Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) from Microsoft simplifies password management by allowing organizations to use Active Directory (AD) to store unique passwords for computers. Typically, an organization might reuse the same local administrator password across the computers in an AD domain. However, this approach represents a security risk because it can be exploited during lateral […]

Securing data in transit is critical to the integrity of transactions on the Internet. Whether you log in to an account with your user name and password or give your credit card details to a retailer, you want your data protected as it travels across the Internet from place to place. One of the protocols […]

Note from September 18, 2017: In this blog post, “AWS CloudHSM” refers to the product that’s now known as AWS CloudHSM Classic. As I explained in my previous Security Blog post, a hardware security module (HSM) is a hardware device designed with the security of your data and cryptographic key material in mind. It is […]

Note from February 28, 2019: The features and services described in this post have changed since the post was published and the procedures described might be out of date and no longer accurate. If we update this post or create a replacement, we’ll add a notification about it here. Note from July 11, 2017: In […]

AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory (Enterprise Edition), also known as AWS Microsoft AD, now supports Microsoft Remote Desktop Licensing Manager (RD Licensing). By using AWS Microsoft AD as the directory for your Remote Desktop Services solution, you reduce the time it takes to deploy remote desktop solutions on Amazon EC2 for Windows Server […]